Don't Say Goodbye
by metimesthree
Summary: Nearly a year after the Lone Wanderer returned to the Vault, a year after she saved the People inside from the oppression of the Overseer, utilizing some Honeyed Words and one well-placed spiked coffee, and her tearful departure, Amata, now Overseer, is finally ready to instigate trade with the people of the Wastes. But, as always, Not is all as it seems in the Capitol Wastes...


The yellow safety light shined brightly in the dimly lit room housed at the entrance to the massive underground fallout shelter, dubbed "Vault 101" by its creators. Along with the lights, a blaring siren aided in announcing the opening of 101 for the first time in the last year. The siren, however, could scarcely be heard over the screeching of the massive, steel, cog-shaped door as it slid form its place in the wall; the two noises blended together an a bone-rattling cacophony that was almost unbearable to the ears of the only person currently present in the entrance/exit of Vault 101. The person's, a girl 20 years of age, and Overseer of a year and a half, hands flew up, shielding her ears from the unexpectedly loud noise.

As the entrance finally finished sliding form its place in the wall, reviling the tunnel of stone and dirt carved into the side of an unsuspecting hill in the city of Washington DC, the young woman, whose name is Amata Almodovar, uncovered her ears. As the takes her first tentative steps toward the threshold of the Vault, she its startled by the noise of one of the Vaults many pneumatic doors opening. She relaxes, however, when she sees it is Officer Gomez, a man in his late thirties, and current Chief of Security of Vault 101, wearing his standard kevlar jacket, but forgoing any headgear.

"Overseer" he starts formally," are you sure you want to go about this yourself?". Obviously uncomfortable with the deal that is about to take place.

"Yes, officer, I'm sure. I cannot risk threatening these traders. We need their business if we are to start trading with people from the surface," Amata states simply, putting up a calm facade to cover the fact that her nerves were sending her into a constant state of near-panic at the meeting that is about to take place. She was to meet with a group of people they had previously contacted via radio, who called themselves "Claw Corp" to discuss future trading plans.

"But ma'am" she rolls her eyes at the use of the honorific, seeing as how Gomez is nearly twenty years older than her "It would be no trouble to send a small security detai-"

Amata abruptly cuts him off "I know that you are only looking after my safety, but we simply can _not_ risk Claw perceiving any form of hostility from us. We need this to get the Vault's feet underneath it," then she add the smallest amount of pleading tone into her voice,"Don't make me have to order you..."

Gomez sighs, exasperated, "If you are absolutely sure about this, then alright. Just be careful".

"No need to worry, when am I not?" she adds, sounding absolutely confident, contrary to what is going on in her mind. Even standing here, still within the safety of the Vault, she feels doubt welling up at the upcoming meeting. Still, forcing that doubt down into the recesses of her psyche, she turns and begins marching towards the line where steel meets gravel, pretending not to hear the humorless chuckle that escapes Gomez' mouth.

Amata flinches ever so slightly as her feet come in contact with the rough gravel for the second time in her life, the first time being the rather painful departure of her long-time best friend after she aided the rebellion looking to overthrow the previous Overseer, who was Amata's father. After thanking her for her help, Amata was forced to banish the girl, who now went my the title "The Lone Wanderer", from the Vault, due to many citizens still blaming the Wanderer and her father, James, for all the death and chaos that has happened due to the Overseer's retaliation to James leaving the vault. She still remembers vividly, their last words as they stood in this very spot, Amata having chosen to show the Woman out.

_"So this is it, huh," the woman who now went by the Lone Wanderer said, frowning at the rickety old wooden door at the end of the tunnel that would take her back into the hellish place known to the residents of Vault 101 as Washington D.C., but the Wanderer knew the truth. The horrible, disgusting, gory truth of what was now the Capital Wasteland. Fear grips her heart at the thought of venturing back out there, but knowing that she can no longer stay in such a domesticated and sheltered place, especially after her almost running Amata through with a Combat Knife when she attempted to rouse her from a nightmare. Even though, this knowledge did not make her departure any less painful. The tears she was trying to hold back behind her lucky pair of aviator sunglasses stood as a testament to that pain._

_ "I...I guess so," replies Amata sadly, her own tears causing her words to come out choked and forced. They both stare at the exit, awaiting the other to do something first, yet neither move. Despite having said it many times already, Amata says once more, "I'm sorry...oh god, Sierra I'm so-"_

_ "Save it," Sierra cuts her off, with no hostility in her voice, instead, only sounding tired,"I've gone through hell once, I can do it again. Just...promise me something?"she asks, her voice becoming gradually more pained, as if she can sense her inevitable departure, as she nears the end of her sentence._

_ "Of...of course," Amata replies shakily, surprised. "What is it?"_

_ Sierra, the Lone Wanderer, takes a calming breath, before saying, "Don't say goodbye. I...I can't stand goodbyes. It makes it sound like I'll never-" she pauses to regain her composure, choking back a sob,"never... see you again."_

_ "Ok," Amata agrees, "I won't say goodbye. How about..." Amata stops briefly to think, before an appropriate phrase finally forms in her grief stricken mind, "How about 'See you later'"_

_ "Yeah" Sierra responds, a small sprout of confidence making its way through her mind. "Yeah, 'cause I will. I _will _see you later. No matter what...," the Wanderer pauses, before turning to the newly appointed Overseer, and tipping her shades up to look her best friend of 19 years in the eyes, "...I am going to see you again, I promise." With that, she begins to walk towards the Wasteland. As Sierra walks toward the exit, a single thought comes across her mind, "_Once more unto the Breach"_._

_ These words, however, have the opposite effect on Amata than intended, as a fresh wave of tears make their way through her eyes, as she barely chokes out the words, scarcely a whisper, "Don't make a girl a promise you can't keep."_

Amata shakes her head to clear the emotional thoughts swirling about in her head as her hand rests on the handle to the same door that the Wanderer walked out of. Before turning the nob, however she glances down at the Pip-Boy covering most of her left forearm. The onboard clock reads "6:27 P.M.", just shy of her meeting time with Claw Corp. She takes one more deep breath in a futile attempt to calm her nerves, and turns the handle, exiting the Vault for the first time in her life. The second the door swings open, however, she is immediately blinded by the harsh light coming off of the afternoon sun. In the next several seconds it takes her vision to clear, she gets her first view of the Capital Wasteland. It's slow going, as if the universe wants to ease her into the Wastes. As soon as it does, though, it leaves no question as to why they are called the Wastes.

As Amata gazed over the seemingly endless miles of scorched earth, only one word managed to echo throughout her mind. _Dead._ But, before her mind had a chance to elaborate on that thought, she was interrupted as a thickly accented voice sounded out amidst the ruins, "'Ey, you 'Mata?" As she looked to the speaker, she noticed he, of course was not alone. The man, and his five accomplices, all wore worn-looking matte black armor, with a crudely painted claw on the left side of their breastplates. Along with their armor, they all carried some very odd looking, boxy weapons.

Deciding that she should probably answer them, she looks at the leader and replies, "I am. I'm guessing that you are the representatives from Claw Corp?" She was surprised when the man gave a sly smile, his answer a short and simple "You could say that", setting her nerves even more on edge than they already were. _Somethings not right. They seem...off._

"So, um, should we discuss the terms of out trade agreement?" Amata questions awkwardly, desperately wishing several things, _What's up with them? Why do they seem so...sly? _And chief among them, _I should've brought a Security Detail._

"Well, why would we do that..." the apparent leader says, as he nonchalantly waves his hand in a vertical motion, his friends' weapons raising with it, along with his own, much smaller one. Where the others more resembled rifles, his was more akin to a pistol, but instead of the blocky form that the other guns had, his appeared to be made of a system of plastic tubes, all seemingly leading to the "Barrel" of the gun, which was clear and glowed a ominous green."...when we could just take whatever you got, and the vault along with it?" his initially sly smile turned sadistic as he, faster than Amata could react, raised his pistol to her leg and squeezed the trigger.

The barrel ejected a luminescent green ball of gas that moved in the blink of an eye past her leg, barely grazing it. Despite this, though, it sent a searingly painful jolt up her leg as the ionized gasses, burning at several thousand degrees fahrenheit, torched a streak along her outer thigh. The pain was so sudden and intense, it caused the Overseer to fall to the ground with a scream. Clutching at the cauterized skin, she looked up at the man, who grinned down at her, before saying in a voice that was completely uncaring,"Oh, and for the record, its not Claw Corp..." as he drops his arm, giving the signal to his subordinates to fire, "It's Talon Company."

As the men depressed their triggers, a lone thought managed to navigate the maze of Fear and Adrenaline and into her mind. _So this is how I die. Not ten minuets out of the Vault. _The guns fired, launching blood red streaks of energy towards Amata, yet, just as Amata accepted the fact that this was where she dies, her view of the men are eclipsed but a larger-than-life figure that had barreled in between her and the Talon Company Mercs with an enraged shout of, "NO!".

The person was clad in what appeared to be a battered and heavily customized set of military-grade power armor, every few metal plates painted a dark red and adorned with uncountable dents and scorch marks. The helmet was a deep gray color, and had yellow lenses. Weapon-wise, they carried a battered old Chinese Rifle, a odd looking metal box with a short handle protruding from one end, and a knife handle protruding from a green box, attached to a blade that was concealed inside of a holster.

She sharp "Zttz"s of laser-fire and and the loud war-scream of outrage, which sounded either filtered or artificial, was quickly drowned out by the ear-splitingly loud barking of the Persons rifle, which they fired inaccurately from the hip. There were several flashes of red as lasers came in contact with the Armor-clad figure, yet they completely disregarded their own wellbeing in favor of focusing entirely on killing the Mercenaries in from of them. By the time the staccato report of the Chinese-made weapon ended with a barely audible _Click_, two of the Talon Mercs had fallen, with one more wounded by a bullet in his leg. Amata's savior dropped the gun to the dirt, and instead reached for the box on their hip, grabbing the handle, flicking a small switch, and swinging it once deployed it out, reveling it to be some sort of hammer with a hunk of metal vaguely resembling an engine block for the head.

The green letters scrawled in paint on the head of the hammer, spelling out "Super- Sledge", would prove to be the last thing the wounded Merc would ever see. Amata is shocked when the hammer knocks the man's head clear off his shoulders, like a golf ball off a tee. The person, whose heavily filtered voice sounds vaguely male, then hurls his "Super-Sledge" at one of the two remaining Mercs, the weight of it killing him instantly. The final remaining Talon, the Leader, charges the man, drawing a Chinese Sword from his hip, and swinging it horizontally at the kink in the Man's armor where the thin plastic under-armour shows on the neck. The man, showing a remarkable reaction time that could only be achieved with years of practice, ducks underneath the swing, drawing the "Knife" from his hip, reveling the blade to instead be what, to Amata, looked like a small chainsaw. The Armored Man then rose up, revving the Ripper and dragging it swiftly across the Talon Leader's neck.

As the leader collapses to his knees near an old pre-war sign saying "Scenic Overlook", choking to death on the blood that was swiftly filling his windpipe, the Armored man placed a steel boot on the mans shoulder, and roughly shoved him backwards, sending him tumbling down the hill.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

And then, ever so slowly, the man turns toward Amata. The Overseer gasps as she sees the sheer amount of the damage done to her savior, the armor scarred and even _melted_ in some places. The man, evidentially feeling the damage dealt to his body, grunted and hunched over slightly, yet not bleeding much, due to most of the wounds having cauterized, yet still week. The bloody Ripper slipped from his grip as he took a few shaky steps toward Amata and raising a feeble arm, outstretched toward her and choking out one word, before falling to the ground, landing on his back.

"Amata..."

Amata, surprised and slightly scared, still riding the Adrenaline high, crawls slowly forward.."H-how do you know my name?" Amata asks, her voice coming out with no small amount of effort.

A weak voice calls out from inside the steel shell, disregarding the question. "The...the helmet...take it off. Can't..breath" Feeble and blood-deprived hands manage to remove their gauntlets, but can manage no more than that. "Cl-clasps...four on my...neck"

Amata nods before reaching forward, feeling around the mans neck and, sure enough, finding four clasps attaching the helmet to the mans head. She hooks her fingers under the edges of the helmet at the chin and nape of his neck, before slowly lifting the helm upwards, the seal breaking with a soft _Hiss_. Out of all the faces she expected to be hidden behind the mask, she didn't expect this one, and it sure wasn't a man. They had the same long hair, which was pulled up into a bun to fit inside the helmet, that was that odd pale-blonde color that the adults in the vault called "Cornsilk" for some reason. The same piercing eyes that were green around the edges of the irises, but tuned almost orange the closer the they got to the pupil. The same scar along her chin from falling on the stairs when they were 10. The same missing canine tooth. everything was just as Amata remembered it, with the addition of some new scars, and a thin trail of blood leaking from the corner of the woman's mouth.

Amata's eyes widen to the size of saucers as she gazes down at the all too familiar face of her best friend of 20 years, as no one took her very special place in Amata's hear in the past year, and said in a small voice, scarcely a whisper in the irradiated wind, "Sierra..."

Sierra, the Lone Wanderer, and Amata's Savior sends up a pained grin at the woman hovering over her, tears of joy at seeing her face one last time welling up in her eyes, before saying simply, "Hey, 'Ama...how ya been?"


End file.
